Misty Eyes
by Sacre Coeur
Summary: Ronnie stumbles upon a girl at the campus. Even she doesn't know who she is. Can Ronnie keep her secret and discover her identity? TWIST! read to find out what it is!
1. Default Chapter

"Oh my god!!"  
  
"You're not supposed to be back yet! What are you doing here?"  
  
"What am I doing here?!?"  
  
Sunshine had run into the locker room to grab some equipment that was left behind for practice when he stumbled upon a girl in her towel right outside the showers.  
  
"Who are you" he asked, recovering from the shock.  
  
"My name is..ummm" she looked puzzled for a moment then cried out, "oh please don't tell on me! I have no where else to go, I'm all alone, and I don't know how I got here and-"  
  
"Whoa, whoa easy there girly. Now, just calm down. My name is Ronnie Bass, but you can call me Sunshine. I'm gunna help you out. We can just talk to the coach-"  
  
"NO!" Her eyes had become as big as saucers.  
  
"Okay, okay. Listen to me, I have to get back to practice but I want to help you. Where are you staying?"  
  
"Upstairs, in the girls' dorms."  
  
"All right, I'll come and get you later tonight, but for the time being just stay put and out of sight. And don't worry, we'll figure this out."  
  
He gave her a warm smile that seemed to calm her nerves a bit and then trotted back to practice.  
  
************************************************************************ After he was sure all of his roommates had fallen asleep, Ronnie ventured up into the forbidden territory of the campus. He found the girl sitting in the hall reading a book.  
  
"I didn't wan to you to start banging on all the doors trying to find me." She said shyly when Ronnie chuckled at her.  
  
"I really appreciate you trying to help me" she continued, "but I'm not sure what you can do."  
  
"Well, we can start by trying to figure out where you came from. Or better yet, let's start off with a name. Do you remember it yet?"  
  
She looked at her hands which were still holding open the book in her lap and shook her head slowly. "Well I have to call you something. How about." he trailed off and held his chin as if contemplating the perfect name for this mystery girl. "Laini. It was my best friend's name from California. What do you think?"  
  
The girl shrugged her shoulders timidly then picked up her head and gave an appreciative smile to the blond boy.  
  
"Good. So Laini, what is the last thing that you can remember?"  
  
"This. I remember standing in front of this school about three weeks ago and I have been here ever since."  
  
"So you don't know how you got here?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Can you remember your family at all?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Nothing?"  
  
"Nada."  
  
He slid down the wall across from her with a stumped look on his face. He looked at the girl sitting in front of him. She was average all around. Nothing special, nothing horrific. But her eyes, they were something else. Ronnie contemplated them as he watched her. They were soft and sincere. When she smiled they almost sparkled at him and when she looked distraught he thought he would drown in them. They were the most captivating feature of her entire being.  
  
They seemed to be sitting there in a dead silence for nearly ten minutes when she nearly whispered something that was so soft it could've been to herself.  
  
"I'm scared."  
  
Ronnie wasn't sure what to do. Did she want him to comfort her? Did she want him to leave her alone? He slid around till he was next to her.  
  
"It's gunna be okay, don't you worry about a thing. I'm here. " He wrapped his arm around her and she nestled her head onto his shoulder and started to cry.  
  
************************************************************************  
  
"Oooooh shit!!!"  
  
Ronnie jumped up and Laini fell to the floor. The sound of rowdy boys stomping through the halls echoed throughout the campus.  
  
"Oh man, coach is gunna kill me!" Ronnie was pacing the hall with his hands tangled in his curly hair.  
  
"Maybe if I sneak down there no one will notice," he began ranting, "or I could tell them that I got sick during the night and I didn't want to wake them so I came up here. Or I could-"  
  
"Maybe you could go down there so you've at least got a chance." Laini noted to the hysterical boy.  
  
"Okay, yes. I'll go now. But, are you okay? Can I leave you alone? You won't get spotted again?"  
  
"Yes, yes, now go!"  
  
Ronnie half ran half fell down the stairs, praying that no one would notice him coming from the restricted zone. Luckily, there were too many guys running through the hall to notice an extra one slip in.  
  
"Where were you last night, man?"  
  
He had managed to get to breakfast without a mention of his disappearing act from his roommates and he thought he was home free. And then Petey sat down.  
  
"Oh ummm" he stuttered while casually picking up a roll, "I was sick last night. I spent most of the night in the bathroom."  
  
"Oh, okay. For a minute there I thought you had gone off to meet some secret sweetheart and forgot to invite me." Some of the guys at the table laughed and Ronnie let out a nervous chuckle. "Yea right man." He was safe but he still felt unnerved. He knew she had lasted three weeks without being seen but he still couldn't help thinking in a worst case scenario frame of mind.. 


	2. Meeting the Titans

It had only been three days since Ronnie met Laini but it seemed like years. Every night he would wait for his roommates to fall asleep and then sneak upstairs. He and Laini would talk till the break of dawn. Petey began getting suspicious. During the last couple of nights he would look to his right and they bed across the room would be empty. Ronnie used the same excuse every morning (that he got sick in the middle of the night) but during the day he seemed fine. Petey was starting to worry about his friend.  
  
On the fourth night Petey decided to find out what exactly was going on. When it was time for the lights to be out, he rolled onto his side and faced the wall so that Ronnie would think he was asleep. He waited until he heard the familiar squeak of the door until he moved. He swiftly got out of bed and watched as Ronnie climbed the stairs to the girl's dorm rooms. He followed at a safe distance, putting at least five minutes in between him and his friend. When he turned into the upstairs hallway he found Ronnie sitting across from a warm brunet playing her in a game of cards.  
  
"What the.?"  
  
Laini spun her head around and Ronnie shot up from his place on the floor.  
  
"Oh man, uh Petey, ummmm..." he stuttered as he ran his hand through his golden locks, "it's, uh, well."  
  
"Whoa, just stop for a minute." Petey said, interrupting his friend, "Now, who the hell is this?"  
  
"Ok, this is Laini, well for now at least," he began, "and she's lost, kinda. Well I guess it's like, umm."  
  
"Hi," Laini got up figuring she'd have better luck than her stammering friend at explaining her situation, "I can't remember anything before arriving here and I would really like it if you wouldn't tell anyone about this seeing as how they'd probably kick me out and all."  
  
Petey stood in a daze, looking back and forth between the girl standing in front of him and the boy behind her, both with desperate looks on their faces.  
  
After what seemed like an eternity he finally spoke.  
  
"The guys are gunna want to know there's a chick walking around the place."  
  
The two let out a laugh of relief and Petey went on to further introduce himself to Laini.  
  
************************************************************************  
  
That night instead of staying upstairs in the girl's dorms, Ronnie led Laini down to his room where Petey had rounded up some of the guys to meet her.  
  
"Are you sure this is such a good idea?"  
  
"What's the worst that could happen?"  
  
"One of them could squeal and I'll be outa here faster than you can throw that football."  
  
"Well then you'll just have to wait for camp to be over and come live with me." Ronnie gave her a warm smile.  
  
Ronnie pushed the door open and slowly entered the room with Laini close behind, holding his hand.  
  
The players all let out a silent gasp as they looked around at each other in confusion.  
  
"Guys, I'd like to introduce you all to Laini."  
  
Soft murmurs filled the room as Laini hung her head; her cheeks flushed a vibrant shade of pink.  
  
"What's this all about? I mean, what's a girl doing here?" Gerry was the first to break the awkward buzz as he rose from the bed.  
  
"Look, she just kinda showed up. She's actually been here longer than we have and this is all she knows. She can't remember anything about her past and as of now has no future. Petey and I just thought it would be best that you guys knew she was here."  
  
"Oh, and there is not a word of this to the coaches, got it?" added Petey.  
  
Sheepish nods came from all the boys as they locked their eyes on Laini.  
  
"Well don't be a rude host Ronnie, introduce me!" Laini needed to say something to stop the gawking eyes of the football players.  
  
"Right, well this is Rev, Lastic, Alan, Gerry, Julius, Ray, Blue."  
  
Her eyes wondered over the boys as each one was named and gave them a gentle smile. Still not completely at ease with the whole situation she held close to Ronnie's arm but her eyes softened as the boys smiled and gave her little waves. The names stopped registering in her mind as Ronnie's voice droned on but she had watched enough of their practices to know a few of their names.  
  
".and of course you know Petey."  
  
There was still doubt in her mind that this was a good idea but somehow she felt as if a huge weight had been taken off her shoulders. Although she knew this could mean more people to blow her cover, she also knew this meant more people who she could trust and that lightened her spirits.  
  
************************************************************************  
  
The next day Laini found herself wandering the halls of the college, like she usually did while the Titans were at practice, but this time she felt as if she had a purpose. She felt like she was looking for something in particular but couldn't figure out what that could be. She strolled in and out of the mess hall and dorm rooms thinking maybe she dropped something on her last visit that would give her away but the rooms were always free of femininity.  
  
All of a sudden she felt lightheaded and decided to get back up to her dorm so she could lie down. As she headed towards the stairs she was overcome with dizziness and ran into the closest dorm room possible. She fell down on the bed and passed out...  
  
A/N: Hey guys! Thank you for reading my story!!! And thank you soooo much to my reviewer!!!!!! Let me know what you think, even if it's bad. I'd love to make my writing better so send in those reviews! 


	3. Close Encounters

Alan walked into his room and nearly jumped out of his skin.  
  
He looked at his bed, looked behind him at the jocks walking by, and then back at the bed.  
  
He caught Petey as he was skipping through the hall humming some unidentifiable tune. He gave him a puzzled look as he motioned to his bed.  
  
Petey looked at the girl sprawled out on the bed, her left leg hanging off the edge.  
  
"Well??" Alan had no idea how to handle this and by the looks of it neither did Petey.  
  
"Go get Sunshine." It was the only thing Petey could think of as he kneeled down next to the bed. He began nudging her gently as the other boy raced out of the room.  
  
Laini started to regain consciousness when Ronnie trotted into the room. He sat on the bed and took her hand as she tried to sit up but was hit by a wave of pain in her head and had to lie back down.  
  
"What happened?" He looked at Petey since Laini didn't look like she could even understand what he was saying, let alone respond to his question.  
  
"I dunno man, Alan found her on the bed just now and she was out cold." He motioned to the boy standing in the doorway as Laini made another attempt at elevating herself.  
  
She held her head and let out a moan. 'What the hell? It feels like I've just been hit with a 2 by 4' she thought to herself.  
  
"Are you okay?" She nodded as her head began to clear up.  
  
"I need to get out of here before we're caught." She said in a frantic tone as she started to get up. The wave hit again and she fell back into Petey and Ronnie who took a tight hold to both of her arms.  
  
"I don't think you should be on your own right now." Ronnie said as pulled her back down to the bed.  
  
"I'll be fine." She pushed past the boys' grasps to stand up, yet still held on to Ronnie's arm for balance, and then shot the boys a friendly smile. "But thanks for your concern."  
  
She staggered over to the doorway where she stopped and looked at Alan.  
  
"Sorry for messing up your bed."  
  
She gave the hall a quick left and right to make sure the coast was clear then half bolted half stumbled up the stairway to the girls' dormitories.  
  
Ronnie and Petey exchanged worried glances and Ronnie sprinted off to follow Laini. Just as he reached the stairs he saw coach Yoast walking down the hall in his direction.  
  
"Hey Sunshine," Yoast called to him, "you're not thinking about going up those steps to be with some phantom college girls now are you?"  
  
"There are phantom college girls up there?" Ronnie chuckled nervously. "Dang."  
  
"Go get cleaned up, son, I'll see you at dinner."  
  
Ronnie headed back to his room and got changed. 'I've gotta be more careful' he thought to himself, feeling very stupid that he had almost been caught. A few days ago he wouldn't have dreamed of going up there if even one person was awake; now he nearly ran up the stairs in front of one of the coaches.  
  
He decided that Laini could wait until after dinner and he was probably working himself up over nothing. She said she was fine, so why didn't he believe her?  
  
*****************************************************************  
  
A/N: Sorry it's short but it's about time I go to bed. Let me know what you think and if it's worth me finishing this thing. :-P G'night! 


	4. A walk in the hall

That night Ronnie climbed the oh-so-familiar steps to check on Laini. He was too worried to eat that night so he brought his leftovers up incase she hadn't been able to get to the pantry, being unconscious and all.  
  
"Laaaaiiiiniiiiii"  
  
He turned his head around the corner in the direction of their usual meeting place but she wasn't in the hall.  
  
'She's probably lying down' he thought to himself as he began walking down the hall, peering into the dorm rooms. He turned suddenly as a soft voice which resembled that of a child who had just been woken up called his name.  
  
"Ronnie?"  
  
She shuffled out of one of the dorm rooms he skipped as his search grew more frantic. As she stammered towards him she would occasionally slant into the wall and trip over her own feet. As he saw this he rushed over to help her.  
  
"Are you alright? What's going on? Did you pass out again?" Laini clamped her hands on the hysterical boy to calm him down.  
  
"Whoa enough with the questions big daddy, I just woke up" she said through a giant yawn.  
  
Ronnie exhaled and slid down the wall as he chuckled to himself.  
  
"I appreciate the thought, though" she added with a reassuring smile.\  
  
He looked into her compassionate eyes with his own smile that seemed to say 'why do I even bother'. The two of them sat like this until Laini broke the silence upon seeing the food Ronnie still had clutched in his hands.  
  
"You gunna eat that?" she joked.  
  
"Oh yea" he said, coming out of his trance and offering her the bits of chicken, baked potato and roll he hadn't mutilated during dinner with his wandering fork.  
  
"Thanks, I didn't get a chance to grab anything today" she managed to utter with half of the roll already in her mouth. "You're the best" she said once she swallowed the roll and gave him a kiss on the cheek.  
  
After acknowledging the compliment with a quick smile he instantly whipped out their usual deck of playing cards.  
  
"Card player? Why yes I am. Why don't we save you the humiliation and just give the win to me, since we both know it'll go there anyway."  
  
She gave him a slight punch in the shoulder as she slid backwards and assumed her typical card playing position across from the blonde boy she had grown so close to. 


	5. Buried Treasure

Late that night Alan started wandering the halls with insomnia. He walked around the kitchen, the mess room, even the locker rooms trying to tire himself out. Soon he found himself at the base of the stairwell which led to the girls' dorms. He began to get curious and slowly started ascending the forbidden passage.  
  
When he reached the top he almost felt disappointed; it looked exactly like the boys' dorms. He brushed off the feeling thinking to himself that it was dumb to believe it'd be anything special.  
  
His curiosity returned instantly as he heard a soft moan come from one of the bedrooms. 'Sunshine finally gettin some action?' he thought as he ventured closer to where the sound had come from.  
  
As he peered into the only room with a closed door (Sunshine had opened the rest earlier in his frantic search for Laini), and rather to his dismay, he saw Laini; alone and asleep. He let out a long exhale and caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a note under a pile of clothes.  
  
Becky,  
I am so sorry I couldn't say goodbye. You don't have to worry, I will make everything better and you will be safe. Wait for me; I'll come back for you soon, I promise. Remember; don't trust anyone until I have you in my arms again. I love you so much Becky and I can't stand being apart from you, but you know that this is the only way. I am worried about but I know you'll be safe, my clever little angel. I miss you and am constantly thinking about you. Wait for me and I'll be with you again soon  
  
Forever yours truly,  
Richard  
  
Alan put the letter back and hurried out of the room. 'Poor Sunshine," he thought as he made his way slowly back to his room.  
  
For the rest of the night he laid in bed thinking about the letter. The more he thought about it, the more he began to despise 'Laini'. 'Why did she lie to us? And what is she hiding from?' These were his last thoughts as he slowly fell asleep. 


	6. Face the Facts

"SUNSHINE!!! Sunshinesunshinesunshinesunshinesunshinesunshinesunshinesunshine!!"  
  
Alan flew down the stairs to breakfast hoping to have a word with his betrayed buddy before practice.  
  
"Sunshine!!"  
  
"Whoa, Alan! Calm down there dude, you're gunna have a flippin heart attack. Now, slowly, what's up?"  
  
All of a sudden Alan realized it probably wasn't such a good idea to draw so much attention to himself and his rather startling news, some of the coaches were even starting to look over to see what the trouble was.  
  
As casually as he could, he sat down across from Ronnie, snagged a piece of toast from Petey's tray and asked "Can I borrow some shampoo?"  
  
The table began to erupt in spurts of laughter and Alan took another bite of his toast. "Sure man, whatever." Ronnie replied between chuckles. When Alan began motioning for Ronnie to leave with him he quickly added "I'll show you wear it is."  
  
Once they were out of the mess hall he asked "What is this all about?"  
  
"It's about Laini." Alan said looking straight ahead.  
  
Sunshine came to an abrupt halt, "Is she alright? Is something wrong!?"  
  
"She's fine. She's just.look I don't want to make hasty assumptions but I have reason to believe she's been lying to us." He said, turning to face Ronnie.  
  
His face showed a mixture of confusion and anger. Alan couldn't tell if he believed him or if he was about to punch him in the face.  
  
It was the latter of the two.  
  
"She's not a liar!!" Ronnie shouted as Alan got up off the floor. "She's not." He repeated and then ran off in the other direction.  
  
"Shit." Alan mumbled as he checked for blood.  
  
Later that day, during practice, Alan complained of feeling sick and asked if he could go inside and sleep. He figured it would never work, but it was worth a shot. Much to his surprise, he was allowed, but only for an hour; any more and he'd be running an extra 20 laps that night before dinner. Gracefully Alan agreed and heading to the campus.  
  
When he got inside he began calling out in search of Laini. Eventually he found her in the mess hall with a magazine and a sandwich.  
  
"Hey, Alan. Ouch, nice shiner. What are you doing here?"  
  
"I have a better question, what are you doing here?"  
  
"What? What are you talking about?"  
  
"I think you know damn right what I'm talking about.Becky."  
  
Alan folded his arms across his chest and gave her a kind of Take-That look as she stared back at him, not saying a word. Finally, she took a deep breath and began to explain. 


	7. Closet Skeletons

"It all started a couple years ago," she began, looking down at her hands, "I was a senior, valedictorian, accepted to Yale, daughter of a millionaire, you know, all that good stuff. I had been dating my boyfriend Richard since 9th grade, he was a year older than me and already attending Yale." She smiled as she thought of the boy  
  
"Ok, I don't quite have time for your life story, and frankly, I don't wanna hear it. So let's try answering the question at hand...what are you doing here?" Alan retorted a tad annoyed.  
  
"I'm getting there, geeze! Ok, where was I? Oh yea, so things are going great until some day my dad starts getting these freaky blackmaily type letters. Actually, they were more like threat letters. We tried to call them in but they couldn't be traced so after a few months we began to just ignore them.  
  
"Big Mistake! Soon we got a package and in it was a video tape. And, oh god! The things that were on that tape!!!" suddenly she buried her face in her hands and began crying.  
  
Alan didn't quite know what to do in this sort of situation; most guys wouldn't, so he just sort of stood still.  
  
Laini had always been uncomfortable crying in front of other people and quickly tried to conceal her face while she wiped away the flowing tears.  
  
"I'm sorry," she said between sobs, "I'll get back to the story."  
  
"It's ok, take your time." Alan replied as he sat across from her, took her hands, and flashed her a compassionate smile.  
  
"Thanks, but I'll be fine." She said smiling back at him with her amazing eyes now glazed over with fresh tears.  
  
"The tape...ok. On the tape was a home video of the torture and murder of one of my father's business associates and close friends. It was disgusting the things that they did to the poor man, God rest his soul, and we were utterly mortified by the whole experience. But one of the most frightening things came at the end of the video, when the killer addressed my father and me directly. Somehow he knew everything about us, especially about me.  
  
"You see, my mother died in a bank robbery shooting when I was five so my father was everything to me, and vice versa. Well, even after all of the letters and the speech he gave us we still weren't sure about what he wanted from us so we continued to ignore him; only this time we hired FBI agents as personal body guards.  
  
"Again, not a good idea. Since there was no way of tracking this bastard down he was still out there and it wasn't long before we received another tape. This time it was one of the teachers from my school; we didn't watch more than 10 seconds of it before we fast forwarded to the end to see if there was anything else this freak had to say to us. And, of course, there was. Only this time was a tad more helpful than the first time; he gave us a reason for the madness, you know, a motive. Unfortunately, it was a rather lousy one.  
  
"He told us that the only reason he was doing this was because he liked to watch our family suffer. He began to tell us how he had hired the robber who shot my mother and how it was him who had been constantly trying to run us off the road many years before. It was clear this guy had some sort of grudge but in order to stay untraceable he didn't mention it at all.  
  
"Well my father and I were royally freaked out because we realized there was no way to buy ourselves out and we had no clue who this psycho could be. So we hired more security and watched our backs for almost two years. During a lot of this time Richard stayed with us and tried to comfort me. Oh my god, look at the time! Well, to make a long story short.."  
  
"Too late." Mumbled Alan, though slightly intrigued by the story.  
  
"We got a few death threats and many aimed at me, so they replaced me with a body double for a few days to distract our stalker and drove me out here to hide out. I couldn't tell anyone cuz I don't want it getting out that I'm here, you have to swear that you won't say anything! I only told you in case you were gunna rat me out to the coaches as a form of blackmail or something. Please promise me you won't tell a soul!!"  
  
She told most of her story while looking at her hands which were still in Alan's but as she spoke the last words she looked up at him, eyes glistening with tears about to overflow.  
  
With an entirely sincere face, and his own small tears welling up, he nodded and brought her hands up to his lips.  
  
Slowly, she took her hands back, wiped her eyes and took another bite of her sandwich.  
  
"How long have we been here?" Alan suddenly asked, straightening up.  
  
"About an hour and a half." Laini replied as she looked at her watch with a mouthful of food.  
  
"Double shit" Alan said as he ran out of the mess hall.  
  
"Bye!" Laini called after him with part of her sandwich falling out of her mouth. 


End file.
